When Kyle was around 3 months, my brother and sister-in-law were telling me about a friend of theirs who had her son with a modeling agency<\/a>. I contacted their friend and asked her what she thought about the agency and the overall experience. She said that it was actually a lot of fun! So I immediately went and signed Kyle up. It wasn’t long before we received an e-mail for his first photo shoot<\/a>. It was a cover-shoot for a Harlequin romance<\/a> novel, how could I say no \ud83d\ude09 For those of you picturing Kyle with his shirt off rescuing a girl baby from a burning building, it wasn\u2019t quite that cool. He was wearing a sailor\u2019s outfit though!\u00a0 And it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
Since the start of his professional baby “modeling career”, Kyle has had over 10 calls and has made over $700 (after his \u201cagent\u201d took their cut). Not bad for an 18 month old.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he\u2019s a terrible saver and has managed to spend all of this money! I regularly receive questions about how I got Kyle into modeling and what it’s like, what agency we use, etc… so, here are the details for anyone interested in having a little fun and who wants to put their kids with a model and talent agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Kyle\u2019s with Minor Details agency (http:\/\/www.minordetails.ca\/<\/a>), owned and managed by Lee Gallagher-Ingram, a former model. We paid $50 upfront (and annually thereafter) and sent in a picture of Kyle with a few details such as height, weight, hair and eye colour. Within a few weeks we got an e-mail telling us where we have to show up to the next day for the photo shoot. We can either reply back saying “we’ll be there” or not. It’s as simple as that, no hassles. Of course, if you reject too many, you might be overlooked for future opportunities.<\/p>\n
Walmart in-store poster<\/p><\/div>\n
There are a few other agencies in Toronto including Kamera Kids (part of Sutherland Models), and Carolyn’s Model & Talent Agency<\/a>.\u00a0 I don’t know much about Carolyn’s\u00a0agency so I won’t comment on that.\u00a0 However, I have heard and read a bit about Kamera\u00a0Kids so I will do a quick comparison between that agency and ours.\u00a0 Kamera Kids represents much fewer kids and tends to turn away a lot of applicants.\u00a0 The only upside to this is that IF you do end up working with them, your child will be more likely to get picked for photo shoots since there isn’t too much competition within the agency.\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n
However, if you are selected (after you attend an open house), you will have to pay an annual fee and if your child is over 3 years, you might have to pay up to $1,500 for a professional photo shoot and comp card. While this charge isn’t bad if you’re an adult model, this might be too much for a child model – unless you want this to be their career (and I hope most parents DON’T want this for their children). I’ve also heard that Kamera\u00a0Kids frowns upon parents who can’t make the photo shoots; even if it just happens once. I believe the commitment from the parents has to be much more intense and serious with Kamera\u00a0Kids versus with Minor Details<\/a>.. But let\u2019s be serious people, we’re talking about children models. Kids are kids, and they’re bound to act like kids. There’s not much we can do about it – or should force them to do for the sake of modeling. One thing is clear; this is NOT TODDLERS IN TIARAS. If I ever get to that point, please pinch me! Let\u2019s live in the life of reality, not fantasy. Let\u2019s let kids be kids and keep the fun in everything we subject them to do.<\/p>\n